She Was More Than You Deserved
by KelseyLaliberty
Summary: Madame Thenardier's last glimmer of motherly instinct and love shine's through as she mourns the death of Eponine.


***I DO NOT OWN LES MIS UNFORTUNATELY***

**This is my first ****fic ever. So please, don't judge to harshly! This is a head canon I've had for a very long time.**

**I know Madame wasn't written like this, but oh well, that's why it's fanfiction.**

**ALSO I WOULD LIKE TO POINT OUT:**

**I KNOW Gavroche is a Thenardier. I've read Les Mis and seen it on stage and the film multiple times and I KNOW the story and the characters. It is never mentioned that Gavroche is related to the Thenardier's in the musical and I wrote this story as if they had gotten rid of Gavroche when he was just a baby and Madame really has no clue that this boy is actually her son. (In the film you see the Thenardier's switch someone's bag for a baby in a basket and the man walks off with him. It's a head canon of mine that the baby was actually Gavroche)**

Madame Thenardier sat alone. She had no idea where her husband was at that moment and frankly, she did not care much. She had someone else on her mind. Someone she normally didn't worry too much about, but today felt very different. A battle was fought and barricades were built … and Eponine wasn't at home, nor had she been seen or heard from. But, why did she care?"

"A walk might do some good."

She felt stiff. She had been sitting in the same spot for hours without realizing it. She slowly stood, stretched out her legs and back and began walking, almost zombie-like through the streets of Paris.

To her, it felt as if the tattered buildings she passed were moving in slow motion. She could not keep her mind off her daughter no matter how hard she tried.

"She's fine. She's always fine. I never worry like this. Not about her, so why on earth am I worrying now?"

She couldn't understand it. Perhaps it was the glimmer of motherly instinct left in her that told her something was wrong. That maybe, just this once, Eponine wasn't fine. It was that small glimmer of love she had left for her daughter that showed it's face on such a night as this.

She walked for what seemed like hours on end. The only other living creatures in the area, outside to dispose of their dead, stared at her like she was some sort of disease. Why in God's name would someone be off on such a casual walk at a time like this ? The air was chilled and had a smokey haze to it. As if God or Mother Nature had built a barricade of their own.

There were bodies in the streets, large pools of blood at her feet, but she walked on. She walked on until she finally came to what was the final barricade. To her, it looked as if it had been abandoned for years. Like an ancient ruin, although it had not been days since the final battle. She moved closer, slowly and cautiously. Some broken furniture had been moved away from the others in the large pile so survivors could get through without much difficulty. She saw no one behind the barricade. She pressed on, her bones filled with a fear she had never experienced before. A few more steps and she could see it. A tavern that served as a temporary tomb for the last men to stand and fight. They were lined side by side, some seemed to be holding hands.

She moved closer. There was a small child, a boy of about 11 years old in the very middle of the line. She knew she had seen him around before, yet his name did not come to mind. She scanned the row of dead hero's once more. She knew none but the boy … yet one other looked so familiar. Just another student she had seen and not forgotten, perhaps.

She turned to leave, but something was stopping her. That glimmer of motherly instinct was poking at her once more. She turned her head to look back one last time …

"No - no they're all boys. That's very clear, they're all young men. She's not in there, it's not possible, I'm being ridiculous."

But still, something was stopping her from turning away and leaving this gravesite.

She glanced back one last time, frozen to the spot she was standing, and again found herself drawn to the familiar stranger from the streets. She took once step closer and suddenly felt sick to her stomach.

"It's not her! You're being stupid, you're being so stupid! That's a boy!"

She began to feel hot.

She moved a bit closer, and saw it. The long, dark hair that had been moved to one side as she was carried into the tavern on her last night.

A moment of final realization, and she broke into tears…

It was Eponine, dressed as a boy, lying on a cold tavern floor, dead because of a war that was not hers to win.

Kneeling beside her daughter, Mme. Thenardier stared with grief filled eyes at a face she once loved so dearly. She stroked her cheek, as cold and white as marble, but still as soft as she remembered, but almost forgotten it to be.

She glanced at the blood stained shirt on her daughters back and noticed a hole in the very centre of her chest where a bullet had hit her. She placed her hand as lightly as possible over the wound, as if she felt like it could still hurt her to touch it. She noticed something under the shirt, what looked like a large bandage. She pulled the collar down until she could see that Eponine had bound her chest. No other person had known that she was a young girl, not meant to be there, until after she was dead. Why had she done this? The answer to that question is something that any mother should have known about her daughter. Something that any daughter should have been able to discuss with her mother.

Guilt had taken over every ounce of Mme. Thenardier. She layed her head on her daughters chest, perhaps, hoping to hear a heartbeat again, and cried until it seemed like she no longer had tears to shed.

"I'm so sorry, sweetheart … I'm so sorry I wasn't there."

She kissed her daughters marble cheek, and stood with the last bit of strengh she had left.

And with one last look at the child who once warmed her cold heart, she said something that she never felt she would say to anyone again.

"I love you, please forgive me…"


End file.
